Ditch Doc

The words of Steve Smith, the actor who portrays Red Green, on his residence in Hamilton:

“If you’re going to be pretentious in Hamilton…boy…you must be really good at it.”

There’s a particular kind of uncharity belonging to people who talk endlessly without offering any breaks in the conversation, because they know that you’d use the first one to get away. They don’t stop to get a response, they don’t seem to inhale, and they even maintain multiple plots, so that if they happen to reach a paragraph in one, you still can’t escape from the others. Then at the end, they always apologize, thus betraying that they knew all along that you weren’t interested.

Can anyone tell me what to do with such people? They’re usually the sort you feel sorry for, and so want to humour. This pretty well rules out interrupting in the middle of sentences, even hour-long ones, looking at your watch, or just walking away. But these conventions are based on polite conversation, which the ranter has already thoroughly trampled. They’re wasting both your time and their own. And yet I just can’t make myself cut them off at fifteen minutes. What to do? Maybe I should ask Max Fox.

One of the little modifications to your daily routine in a northern winter is two stops at every stop sign: one before the road to check for cars, and one before the sidewalk to check for snowmobiles.

The primo local escape destination for Fort Nelsonites is a sulfur hotspring two hundred miles north of town. Yesterday, a friend and her family introduced me to the joys of winter dipping. The steam coming off the surface of the pool hits the -15 air, covering the trees with hoarfrost and condensing into a five foot deep, gently precipitating snow cloud. We watched beads of ice collect on eachother’s hair and eyelashes for a while, then had a water fight. In the background, some parents from Arizona were telling their kids to stop putting snow on their heads. I decided to go for my camera before it got too dark. “So the idea is to go to the hot end for a while, and then dash out and change really fast, right?” Nods of affirmation. After the requisite overheating, I stomped out of the pool, grabbed a towel, and headed for the change room, trying not to slip on the ice or let my wet feet freeze to the deck. By the time I had changed, I couldn’t wring out my swimsuit, because it was stiff with ice, and had begun to freeze to the bench. I went for my toque, but I could barely get it on, because after the water fight, my hair had solidified into a hedgehog of little haircicles. I melted the frost off my camera with my finger. Can’t wait to show you the pics.